Are you making this basic marketing mistake?

I can’t believe that a large public Health Club chain like Life Time Fitness would make the basic mistake of not claiming and verifying their Google Maps (Places) listing. This week it caused me to waste 20 minutes of my life. If I was a potential new client, I may have decided to find a different place to spend my money.

Here’s what happened.

I’m visiting my in-laws in North Phoenix AZ and wanted to get in a workout after lunch. I teach at Life Time Fitness back in Minnesota and knew that they have a club in Scottsdale, not far away. So I Googled “Life Time Fitness near Scottsdale, AZ” and found this listing in Google Maps: Click image to enlarge.

The listing is displaying a Life Time Fitness Mind Body Studio, not the big club I expected. I didn’t know that until I had driven well past the actual location I wanted and pulled into the parking lot of the Yoga studio. Thinking I maybe just turned around I checked again, only this time using Google Maps on my iPhone. Same results 🙁

After calling for directions and back tracking 5 miles, I finally got in my workout.

This happened to me (and an unknown number of people who also use Google on their computer or their smart phones) for the simple reason no one at Life Time Fitness has bothered to claim their listing as the business owner. Click image to enlarge.

Google’s robots create these listings from other business listing websites like Yellow Book. It’s up to the business owner to claim the listing (it’s completely free) and validate the information listed and confirm where the listing is displayed on the map.

Action Items for you to do right now:

Google your business name and see what comes up in the search listings.

Add your city name to the search and try again.

If these searches don’t display a Map on the results page click on the “Map” navigation link in the top left corner.

If you find your listing and it says Business Owner? take a few minutes and claim your listing.

You may also want to check your smart phone’s map feature using the same process to see if mobile searchers are finding your studio.

Beyond just claiming your listing, how completely you configure your listing can make a huge impact on your studio’s Online Findability. If you would like my help with this send me an email john@indoorcycleinstructor.com